{"id":72449,"date":"2025-06-17T11:35:59","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T02:35:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/jun\/17\/pacific-faces-critical-moment-in-fight-for-press-freedom-media-watchdog-warns-ntwnfb"},"modified":"2025-06-17T11:35:59","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T02:35:59","slug":"pacific-faces-critical-moment-in-fight-for-press-freedom-media-watchdog-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=72449","title":{"rendered":"Pacific faces \u2018critical moment\u2019 in fight for press freedom, media watchdog warns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some reporters in the region face jail for alleged defamation in countries where news outlets often lack resources to defend lawsuits<\/p>\n<p>The Pacific is facing a \u201ccritical moment\u201d for press freedom, the region\u2019s media watchdog has warned, as a number of senior journalists in a range of Pacific countries are facing costly lawsuits and criminal prosecution for alleged defamation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have seen a few cases coming up \u2026 challenging the fundamentals of press freedom in the region,\u201d said Robert Iroga, the chair of the Pacific Freedom Forum.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/jun\/17\/pacific-faces-critical-moment-in-fight-for-press-freedom-media-watchdog-warns-ntwnfb\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some reporters in the region face jail for alleged defamation in countries where news outlets often lack resources to defend lawsuitsThe Pacific is facing a \u201ccritical moment\u201d for press freedom, the region\u2019s media watchdog has warned, as a number of sen&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":205,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,238,874,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-media","category-pacific-islands","category-press-freedom"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/205"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72449"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72450,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72449\/revisions\/72450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}